The new Irish Sea Border: What does it mean? The attack is commemorated in the song South East Antrim Brigade by loyalist singer Rab C, many of whose compositions were about the brigade and its leading members. [56] Two men from the Newtownards area were arrested in connection with the killing. UVF chiefs fear that any deal they do with the British government about going out of business in return for funding and an amnesty will be dependent on Lisa's body being returned to her heartbroken family. [6] The Irish News described the brigade as 'powerful' and at one time being 'the most bloody and murderous gang operating within the paramilitary organisation'. Adams was hit five times in the attack but the taxi rushed to the Royal Victoria Hospital where he received treatment and survived. In October 2002, Gregg was one of the brigadiers who passed the resolution expelling Adair from the UDA for his involvement in the non-fatal shooting of Jim Gray. She was killed in 2005 and her remains hidden by the son of a veteran member of the Red Hand Commando - a UVF-affiliated group. These psychos were obviously baying for blood Mod blood, to be exact. games. [44] In 2010, the Independent Monitoring Commission confirmed that the split between the Fisher faction of the brigade and the wider UDA had not ended. [65], On 25 November 2020 the Belfast Telegraph reported that the South East Antrim UDA had passed on a threat against one of their journalists. He will have run the crime gang . [43] Accusations that the brigade has remained active continued, however, and in 2009, the mother of Jason Ballard, a 20-year-old Greenisland native subjected to a vicious beating at his home, claimed that the attack had been carried out by the South East Antrim Brigade, although they denied any involvement in the attack. Gary Fisher became brigadier following the murder in 2003 of his predecessor John 'Grug' Gregg, but he is known to be looking for a way out of the organisation. Widely known as a man with a fearsome reputation, Gregg was considered a "hawk" in some loyalist circles. "It was very tragic, on the day of the funeral, to have a large police presence around the church," he said. Killing Rage The life and death of Eamon Collins. games. He later became part of the UDA South East Antrim Brigade. Nowadays, pockets of the town remain on edge since the murder of a local man, Glenn Quinn, by the South East Antrim UDA. Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. [9] Gregg's fearsome reputation earned him the nickname "the Reaper" and he bore a tattoo of the Grim Reaper on his back as a tribute. This came within a few days of a 1m allocation to a conflict transformation project in loyalist areas. Gregg, seated in the backseat, was hit at close range and died instantly. UDA Brigadier for South East Antrim, Gregg - who became a loyalist icon when he shot Sinn Fin chief Gerry Adams - was gunned down in Belfast's docklands area nearly 20 years ago. Greggs killing proved to be the undoing of Adair. [14] Later in the year, English was forced to confront Adair about rumours that Adair was considering attending an Inner Council meeting armed in order to eliminate the other five brigadiers and assume sole control of the UDA. These were carried out under the Red Hand Defenders cover name, with some attacks also blamed on the Orange Volunteers who were active in similar attacks at the time. [2] Since 2007 the South East Antrim Brigade has operated independently of the UDA following a fall-out. Tensions in South East Antrim between the UDA and the UVF were already high after a summer of incidents and disagreements. Security sources say that with more than 2,000 members, the South East Antrim UDA is one of Northern Ireland's largest paramilitary gangs. Video Software we use: https://amzn.to/2KpdCQFAd-free videos.You can support us by purchasing something through our Amazon-Url, thanks :)The UDA South East A. Tommy Lyttle suspected that Craig had helped the IRA kill South Belfast UDA Brigadier, John McMichael in December 1987 not long after McMichael had aired complaints within the UDA hierarchy and in Craig's earshot, about Craig's dubious business dealings. In late 2001, Greggs reign of terror in Rathcoole, where drug dealing, knee-capping and savage beatings were the norm, was challenged by local British Labour Party Councillor Mark Langhammer, who also objected to Greggs close links to neo-Nazi groups in Great Britain. The violence, on the Castlemara estate in the town, saw up to 150 loyalists confront each other as members of the 'mainstream' UDA flooded the area in a show of strength against the . His assassination attempt had made him a loyalist hero and he quickly took over from English as brigadier. [30] A bomb attack on Adair's house on 8 January 2003 was blamed on Gregg by White, although Adair himself was returned to prison two days later after a dossier detailing his drug-dealing and racketeering activities was shown to Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Paul Murphy. November 22 2014 04:33 PM. Convicted gunrunner Thomas Morgan, a one-time member of the UDA, has muscled in on the town's drug scene. Snoddy died from the illness in September 1988 and English . "The vast majority of it comes in from down south, from one of the well-known crime gangs down there. Brawls between the two had been frequent and tensions had been growing between the UDA and UVF leading to a drink-fuelled pitched battle between the two groups at the train station. [51], On 13 March 2017 Geordie Gilmore, formerly a commander in the brigade until being stood down in 2016 following a dispute over drug money,[52] was shot in the neck in Carrickfergus. "When Gary was in complete control, there would have been no suggestion of any leaks, it was a tight, tight operation. His 2IC (second-in-command) was also dismissed after being given a sickening . [52] The South-east Antrim brigadier, who was not named in reports, stated that any brigade members attending Gilmore's funeral would be expelled. The juxtaposition of this initiative with the name of Gregg was condemned by the mother of a Catholic who had been killed by members of the South-East Antrim Brigade in 2000 as she argued "it's sickening to call it the Gregg initiative when he was a ruthless terrorist.Everyone goes on about Johnny Adair but they're all as bad as each other". 25.043611 121.5625. John Gregg (UDA) The man who shot Gerry Adam? Gregg was married with one son and two stepdaughters. The newspaper also reported that the group refused to decommission its weapons. It's believed he fears sparking a new intra-loyalist feud, piling even more pressure on the faction which has been facing a police crackdown. Intense police pressure is forcing South East Antrim UDA mob boss Gary Fisher to gradually withdraw from his leadership role. A mural in support of the group lists its areas of activity as being Rathcoole (the mural's location), Rathfern, Monkstown, Glengormley and Whitewell, all of which are part of Newtownabbey, as well [33], In November 2011, Stuart Gregg received 400,000 compensation for psychological trauma due to having witnessed his father's murder. [3] A mural in support of the group lists its areas of activity as being Rathcoole (the mural's location), Rathfern, Monkstown, Glengormley and Whitewell, all of which are part of Newtownabbey, as well as Carrickfergus, the Shore Road, Greenisland, Ballymena, Whitehead, Antrim and Larne. Cloughfern Young Conquerors, a flute band attached to the brigade, had been to Derry for the annual Apprentice Boys of Derry march through the city centre when at the train station they met members of the Shankill Protestant Boys, a UVF-affiliated band. [39] A new interim leadership was appointed in their stead although the brigade effectively divided between those who supported the wider UDA leadership and those who remained loyal to Fisher. Carson was described by UDA sources as a dear friend of Greggs and a junior member of the South-East Antrim Brigade. The UDA South East Antrim Brigade is one of the six brigades of the Ulster Defence Association (UDA). Martin Quinn is the brother of the murdered Glenn Quinn, who was beaten to . Senior members of South East Antrim UDA want to take out the UVF man who they believe gave up their drug dealers. [8] Under Gregg the South-East Antrim Brigade were prepared to ignore the terms of the loyalist ceasefire, such as on 25 April 1997 when he dispatched a five-man team to Carrickfergus to set fire to a Catholic church in retaliation for a similar attack on a Protestant church in East Belfast (this earlier attack had actually been organised by dissident loyalists seeking to provoke the UDA into returning to violence). From the 1990s until his shooting death in 2003 by rival associates, Gregg served as brigadier of the UDA's South East Antrim Brigade. As the band prepared to take the train home that evening they met members of the Shankill Protestant Boys, another band in town for the parade that was affiliated to the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF). [16], Having witnessed demographic shifts in Glengormley and Crumlin, traditionally loyalist majority towns that had come to have nationalist majorities on account of loyalists moving out of Belfast, he determined that the same thing would not happen in Carrickfergus and Larne and so launched a campaign of pipe bomb and arson attacks on Catholic homes there (despite these towns having very small Catholic populations). Wikizero - Ulster Volunteer Force . Senior members of the Ulster Volunteer Force, the Loyalist Volunteer Force and Red Hand Commando also attended. A mortally wounded Carson died later in hospital, and taxi driver William McKnight was seriously hurt. Gregg was given a paramilitary funeral which was attended by thousands of mourners, including senior UDA members Jackie McDonald, Jim Gray, Sammy Duddy and Michael Stone. [18], Despite the continuing activity of his brigade, and his own earlier maiming, Gregg shared the reluctance of other brigadiers about what he saw as a coming war between the UVF and West Belfast brigadier Johnny Adair. The Sunday World understands he is desperate for an exit strategy that will take him out of the firing line. [18] In 2000, he helped to ensure that a proposal before the Inner Council to initiate the decommissioning of weapons was rejected. Both men, who lived on Ferris Avenue, had their houses burnt out during the attack. The business has expanded rapidly in recent years and is used to launder criminal cash. SoundCloud . "[38] The dissident branch was also revealed to have contained an informer after Jon McDowell, Tommy Kirkham's assistant, told the Belfast Telegraph that he was an RUC Special Branch agent in November 2007. [1] Gregg was also characterised as "a bully, a racketeer, and a sectarian bigot who took particular delight in carrying out vicious punishment attacks and randomly targeting Roman Catholics. Fri 14 Jan 2022 at 00:30. A UDA member originally from the Woodvale Road had moved to Rathcoole where he had been beaten up after it emerged that he was a friend of Joe English, the former brigadier who had been exiled from the estate by Gregg for his anti-drugs stance. [21] Gregg, who was noted for his sectarian beliefs, insisted that such attacks were necessary in order to prevent the "greening" of places such as Carrickfergus and Antrim, a process he claimed had already happened in Glengormley where the Catholic population had experienced significant growth. Masked gunmen immediately opened fire on the occupants with automatic weapons. His own earliest memory of the Troubles was the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association marches in Derry, a movement to which Gregg and his family were strongly opposed. [46], In March 2014 the South East Antrim Brigade was widely reported as being behind a "rampage" in which up to 100 people, some of them wearing masks, attacked a number of residential properties in Larne. As the band prepared to take the train home that evening they met members of the Shankill Protestant Boys, another band in town for the parade that was affiliated to the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF). [6] However, this proved short-lived. UDA members turned out in force yesterday for the funeral of Mr Robert Carson, who was gunned down alongside the east Antrim UDA "brigadier", Mr John Gregg, in Belfast's docks area at the weekend. Gregg was the most senior UDA member killed since South Belfast brigadier John McMichael was blown up by the IRA in 1987. Gregg joined the Ulster Young Militants (UYM), the youth wing of the loyalist paramilitary Ulster Defence Association (UDA) at the age of 14. Free. The UDA South East Antrim Brigade was previously one of the six brigades of the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) and are heavily involved in the drug trade. [11] In late August 1997 this band was one of a number of similar flute bands to travel to Derry for the annual Apprentice Boys of Derry march through the city centre. Themen: Politische Wochenschau, politische Theorie, Artikel und Berichte zu Themen rund um berwachung, Repression, Wirtschaft, Soziales, Befreiungsnationalismus, Antiimperialismus, Zeitgeschichte und Literaturhinweise However, one major obstacle to overcome before any deal can be agreed is the recovery of the body of missing murder victim Lisa Dorrian. - Free Online Library", "New UDA brigadier link to McColgan and Quail murders", "UDA expels south east Antrim brigade chiefs By Brian Rowan Thursday", PM praises Northern Ireland decommissioning moves, Three more Northern Ireland terrorist groups lay down their arms, UDA Brigade deny being involved in gang attack, "A rebel UDA unit is re-arming in a grim warning to rival drug dealers", "UDA blamed for Larne, County Antrim, 'rampage', "UDA 'on a power trip', says senior police officer after attacks in Antrim", "UDA's Larne mob attack was aimed at brothers who stood up to terror gang", "Larne disorder: Third man is arrested after two are released", "Killer of leading loyalist George Gilmore remains at large", "High-profile loyalist George Gilmore dies after gun attack", "Man arrested in Carrickfergus over murder of loyalist George Gilmore", "Man shot in front of son in Northern Ireland 'victim of UDA internal feud' | UK news", "Police make another arrest over Colin Horner murder", "UDA link revealed as pair jailed over inept effort to buy guns on 'dark net', "Baby narrowly escapes attack on Ards homes by 'South East Antrim UDA', "Newtownards 'South East Antrim UFF' graffiti condemned", "Colin Horner killing: Drama as four men are jailed for life - Belfast News Letter", "Loyalist terrorist group issues threats against two journalists in Belfast", "Police warn politicians about loyalist paramilitary threats", "Loyalist paramilitaries threaten politicians in North", "Loyalists threat against Belfast Telegraph and Sunday Life journalist condemned", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=UDA_South_East_Antrim_Brigade&oldid=1135430778, This page was last edited on 24 January 2023, at 16:49. Members of the loyalist flute band, Cloughfern Young Conquerors dressed in uniform accompanied the coffin. [19], In late 2001, Gregg's reign of terror in Rathcoole, where drug dealing, knee-capping and savage beatings were the norm, was challenged by local British Labour Party Councillor Mark Langhammer, who also objected to Gregg's close links to neo-Nazi groups in Great Britain. The South East Antrim UDA is believed to be responsible for seven unsolved murders in the same area dating back to 1998. He said there were about 2,000 members of the UDA in the south east Antrim . [59], On 3 January 2019 police reported a baby in a pram narrowly escaped injury after homes were attacked in Co Down by South East Antrim UDA members. 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